In the 1997 film, Liar Liar, Jim Carrey starred as Fletcher Reede, a scruples-free lawyer whose young son, Max, wishes that, for just one day, his dad would tell the truth. Max’s wish is granted. Fletcher flips from mendacity to veracity. He tries persistently to lie; his Silly-Putty® face contorts wildly, but he can only blurt out truths. Hilarity ensues, life lessons are learned, and the Reede family lives blissfully ever after. Fast forward to Washington DC, November 2014. Young Max, now a manly Millennial, remorseful for having sat out the mid-term elections, and disgusted with the politicians’ threats and counter-threats on immigration, makes a new wish: For just one day, one Republican (John Boehner) and one Democrat (Barack Obama) must only speak the truth. The wish is granted. The usual round of press conferences and TV appearances are held, and questions are asked of President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner.Mr. President, you’ve said that, given the failure of Congress to enact immigration reforms, you will use the full extent of your legal authority and take executive actions before the end of the year to fix our nation’s immigration system. What specific actions will you take?

President Obama:

Before I answer that, let me admit a few things. I promised to push for immigration reform during my first year in office, but didn’t. I blamed Congress for failing to enact immigration reforms, while claiming that I lacked authority to disregard the laws on the books. Hoping to show Republicans that I could be tough on immigration, I became the “Deporter in Chief.” But then, a few months before the last Presidential election, I did what I said I could not do and authorized the Homeland Security Department to roll out a program for Dreamers known as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). That move brought out Latino voters in droves and may well have been the proximate cause of my reelection. Pressed by immigration activists to stop breaking up families by deporting parents, I asked the Secretary of Homeland Security to study alternatives. Then I deferred action on his report, and then I deferred executive action in the summer, and deferred again in the fall at the behest of endangered Democrats who worried that they’d be trounced in the mid-terms. It didn’t matter. They were trounced anyway, and I’m now facing a Congress controlled by the GOP. So having learned that I must talk truth on immigration, here’s what I’m going to do very soon. I’ll order reforms that allow a 2.5 million to 5 million undocumented to receive work and travel permits (except for recent arrivals, hardened criminals and terrorists). I’ll authorize measures that will speed up — ever so slowly — the immigrant visa backlog. I may allow early filing of employment-based green card applications. This would grant professional and skilled foreign workers and their families work and travel permission sooner than now. But they’ll still be stuck in the waiting line just as long and won’t get green cards until their visa numbers are current. I could recapture 600,000 or more immigrant visa numbers that my own and previous administrations squandered by not using them before the end of each fiscal year. I could say that spouses and kids would not be counted in the employment-based green card quota. I could make USCIS stop denying benefits to people on technicalities or imagined grounds of ineligibility. I haven’t decided on these yet. Of course, I’ll describe these executive actions as generous within the bounds of the law. I know that I’ll be accused of having bypassed the Republican Congress on immigration reform. Some in the media will say it’s ”Caesarism” or “caudillismo.” But others will come to my defense. Still, the constitutional law professor in me worries that I may be going too far, and that some future Republican president will use my action as precedent to ignore the Constitution and take the country off a cliff.

Well Max got his wish and two seasoned pols told the truth for a day. Does it change anything? Not really; we know these truths to be self-evident. The ultimate truth is that howsoever President Obama’s executive actions and the Republicans’ reactions on immigration play out, the American people must stand up and hold our “leaders” accountable to fix our dysfunctional immigration system through well-conceived legislation.